Doubt
by magisticat
Summary: Hermione Granger has entered her seventh and final year at Hogwarts. She has returned to school after a year searching for horcruxes. War has changed who she is as a person, leaving her with anxiety and the inability to relate to others. She will learn that companionship can be found in all sorts of ways. There will be smut.


Mostly she'd been lonely the last few weeks. Harry and Ron had elected to opt out of their final year, a notion she found ridiculous. They really were missing a huge opportunity to learn. She'd tried to persuade them, of course, to no avail. The duo could not be moved by her insistence on the importance of the seventh year.

Hermione was fastening the buttons on her pajamas. The seventh year dormitory was bustling with the clamor of girls' voices, all excitedly talking about the Quidditch lineups this year. Evidently there was a new keeper with _the most dreamy eyes._

She rolled her eyes and looked out the bay window. She couldn't relate to any of them, not anymore. For one thing, she was a year older than the rest. For another, she was only a seventh year because she had returned to school after a year of hiding from the rest of the world.

Last year, she and her friends had escaped from the persecution of the rest of the wizarding world in search of the answer to Voldemort's mortality. They had found it, but not without loss. Many of her good friends had died in the process, and she too had suffered at the hand of Bellatrix Lestrange.

He was dead now though, for good. The most fearsome wizard to have ever existed had finally been killed after all the pieces of his soul had been destroyed. It had been a long ordeal, it had changed who she was as a person, and she wasn't sure she could slip back into the ritual of ordinary life after all that.

At least there was her best friend. Ginny was in her final year as well, and they had many classes together. They could talk easily and reminisce over shared memories. She saw her most days, but only briefly.

Ginny was captain of the Quidditch team this year and had also been named Head Girl. She was very busy with her popularity and spent little time on her school work. She had good marks, of course, but she needn't rely so much on book learning as others. It saddened Hermione a little to realize this. She often wondered if Ginny was the better witch.

That was ridiculous, Hermione knew. It wasn't for nothing Hermione was named the brightest witch of her age. Who else could perform like she did? There was no denying Ginny was a powerful hexer. She shared with Harry a certain knack for Defense Against the Dark Arts. But no one could compare to Hermione's charms or transfigurations.

She reminded herself that bigheadedness wouldn't do. Smarts were all she had at the moment, though.

It had been harder for Hermione to keep her composure this year than she would have liked. War had riddled her with lingering anxiety. The fight was over, but she still found herself waking in a cold sweat, gripping her wand and trying to recount protection enchantments she hadn't cast.

Worse still were the nightmares. Dark forests with murmured voices, flashes of fur and teeth, screams and fires all haunted her dreams. And of course, the overlaying sense of abandonment. She was always so sure she was missing something. She didn't take stock in dream interpretation, but it wasn't hard to guess what was bothering her.

After seven years of friendship, she and Ron had finally made the plunge into romance. It hadn't begun easily, and perhaps he had only realized his affection after leaving Harry and Hermione on the quest. Regardless, their summer together had been beautiful. At night they would lie by the fire in each other's arms, and during the day she would whisk them to some of the places he had missed during the search for horcruxes. Each day they sought to replace a bad memory with a good one. That little idea had been Ron's; she thought it was brilliant.

Then he had taken up Auror training, and she had decided to go back to school. This changed nothing in their relationship, of course, but it was hard. He sent many brief letters of funny things he had seen during the day, or grumpy letters so she would try to cheer him up. She returned many long letters detailing her schedule and the things she had learned. He took little interest in the notes she sent from classes, but she really did hope he could improve himself by proxy.

Aside from exhausting many owls, they had little by way of romance nowadays. They saw each other only during her Hogsmeade trips twice a month. Ron wasn't making money yet so most of their dates involved errands he had promised to run for his mother. She didn't mind, as long as she could be with him.

The rustle of curtains near her snapped Hermione back to attention. She hadn't realized how quiet it had gotten. The last of the girls had gone to bed. With a yawn and a stretch, she lay herself to bed and drew the thick red curtains. The silence screamed in her ears for many hours until she finally drifted to sleep.


End file.
